…We jump back to the depths of December a cold dark afternoon and despite the Christmas decorations I’m feeling fed up.

Fed up of the endless drizzle, of heading to work in the dark coming home in the dark, living in twilight. OK I am tired, having just completed another tough term, feeling under siege, teaching under constant attack in the press again, budgets being cut, being a head now a high stakes gamble rather than a vocation.

Fed up, fed up mostly because of a nagging sense that there is more out there, better out there. Fed up because the all consuming job of being the head of a school in a deprived area on the edge of London comes at the cost of not having enough time and energy to be the dad and husband I want to be. Fed up because it is all too easy to find excuses to say ‘no’ because it’s easier than taking a risk.

So I had been looking for something new for a while, not in any serious way, more sort of alert to opportunities, open to ideas. My search more of a thought exercise, wish fullfilment. What if? What about? A weekly flick through the Times Ed but not brave enough to commit.

Yeah I was finding work hard, stressful and depressing but I had a good team, people who I worked well with, loyal, and the school was in a good place. It was the external pressures. But in reality I was too settled to really do anything about my growing sense of dissatisfaction.

Outside of work, as a family, we were comfortable at home, routines well established.  The kids were settled. Life outside of work was easy and Victoria and the kids were for the most part content.  But it’s was me.

But what to do? Another Headship in the UK? Possibly, but it seems more of the same, same pressures, same stresses. I made a couple of applications for jobs in the UK, I was invited to a couple of interviews but it was all more of the same.

How about abroad? Victoria and I had talked about working abroad years ago, it was one of those ideas we contemplated when we were courting, early in our careers. But as time passed we accumulated more ties and excuses not to. Developed obligations to pot plants and were tied down by ephemera. Family ties grew more complex, our kids, our friends kids, nieces nephews, friends, mortgage, loans and pets.

The idea faded and became in truth quite scary. The excuses well worn. Australia and New Zealand were too far, nothing leapt off the page in Asia, we are not brave enough to do the Middle East or Africa at the moment, not with a young family. US and Canada, nothing taking our fancy. My own ignorance of other languages and lack of fluency making so much of the world impractical or at least a little daunting for a first leap.

What to do? Keep looking. Not in a serious way but staying sort of alert…

Back to that damp day in December and another flick through the good old TES. No expectations. When there sat a small add:

‘Principal – Primary School – Cayman Islands’.

‘What about this one?’, I asked Victoria, fully expecting the usual well rehearsed reasons not to.

Instead of ‘no‘ her answer was, ‘why not? If it is meant to be its meant to be…’.

Quietly our world had shifted and we looked at each other.

The add closed in six hours. Doable. So I did. At 6.30 I hit send and we left the house for a friend’s party.

The first person we met at the party was Veronica, I knew her through the heads circuit till she moved abroad now here she was guest of our mutual friend. Sun tanned and looking well. Very relaxed. Veronica was in her third year of a contract in the Cayman Islands and loving it. A sign?

We chatted told her about the application and she was excited for us, loads of positives, genuinely encouraging, life’s funny like that sometimes just when you need a nudge or nod the universe gives you one…